“We can do, not just a great free trade deal with the EU, but it will also enable us to go forward with free trade deals with the rest of the world and that is a genuinely exciting thing. We haven’t been able to do it for 45 years.

“I certainly don’t think there’s any case whatever for paying huge sums of money to the EU as some sort of Brexit settlement.

“There are huge sums of money we can take back and that we should take back control of, that can be used to the benefit of the people of this country.

“There’s a £10 billion net contribution we make every year, that must come back.”

Mr Johnson went on to bash Jeremy Corbyn and said the Labour leader would be “eaten alive” by European Union negotiators.

“One thing I will say, I don’t think Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party will have a cat’s chance in Hades of negotiating a decent settlement with the EU,” he said.

“I am genuinely alarmed by the prospect of a Corbyn-led negotiating team wandering into that Chamber in Brussels and, frankly, being eaten alive, Brexit being frustrated.”

Meanwhile, senior civil servants have been told to prepare plans for a hung parliament before the end of the week as a growing amount of experts predict Theresa May will not secure a House of Commons majority.

May meets Juncker and Barnier at Number 10 Wed, April 26, 2017

Theresa May hosted European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and chief negotiator Michel Barnier at Downing Street for the first face-to-face talks since she triggered the two-year process of withdrawing from the EU

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Prime Minister Theresa May greets European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker ahead of a working dinner at 10 Downing Street, London

After a series of polls suggested Labour’s recent boost in support could threaten the Prime Minister’s hopes of a Commons majority, the result of General Election has been plunged into uncertainty.

According to the Times, one Whitehall source said: “A senior civil servant sat in a meeting and said, ‘We’ve just all been told to prepare our plan for a hung parliament.’ This goes further than before.”

Sources have reportedly told the newspaper that Labour frontbenchers have increased their communications with senior Whitehall officials in recent days.